The following two days, October 16th and 17th, we're having a two-day non-residential retreat at the Interdependence Project in the East Village. This is a terrific opportunity for anyone who wants to get a real taste of what zazen is all about. The retreat is open to beginners, no experience necessary. It will be focused on shikantaza style zazen as taught by Dogen Zenji. It's non-residential, which means you get to go out and have a night on the town in Manhattan afterward instead of being cooped up with a bunch of Zen nerds all night.

Brad's new interview may be awesome, but after about a half hour of listening to two excruciatingly boring new age types chatting on and on about enlightenment between their reiki and angel commercials, I'll never know..

I like how Brad always rushes to put up another blog post when the conversation starts turning towards Treeleaf and me. He can't fucking stand it when people talk about Jundo Cohen. It fucks him up bigtime.

We were discussing how Shambhala Sunspace fucked me over and then Brad HAS to put a new post up to divert attention.

A close-minded teacher explains to his class of small children that he is an atheist. He asks the class if they are atheists too. Not really knowing what atheism is but wanting to be like their teacher, all hands go into the air.

There is, however, one exception. A beautiful little girl named Lucy has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different.

"Because I'm not an atheist."

Then, asks the teacher, "What are you?"

"I'm just a person."

The teacher is a little perturbed now, his face slightly red under his white beard. He asks Lucy why she isn't an atheist like everyone else.

"Well, I was brought up knowing and loving people. My mom is a free thinker, and my dad is a free thinker, so I am a free thinker."

The teacher is now angry. "That's no reason," he says loudly.

"What if your mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?" he asked.

The little girl paused, and smiled. "Then," says Lucy, "I'd be an atheist."

Adolf Hitler is out jogging one morning in 1938, he notices a little boy on the corner with a box. Curious, he runs over to the child and says, “What’s in the box boy?”

To which the little boy says, “Kittens; they’re brand new kittens .”

Hitler laughs and says, “What kind of kittens are they?”

“National Socialists,” the child says.

“Ah, that’s cute,” Hitler says and he runs off chuckling.

A couple of days later Hitler is running with his buddy, Himmler, and he spots the same boy with his box just ahead. Hitler says to Himmler, “You have got to see this” and they both jog over to the boy with the box.

Did you ever notice that you don't mind the smell of your own shit, but you'll absolutely gag on the smell of another's?

What's up with that? I mean, it's technically the same stuff. If you took a blind smell test and they had saved your shit for a bit so that you wouldn't know whose it was, you'd gag on yours and everyone else's. What's the deal?

Shit is all the same. That's why it's universal. People are people, and they do people things - just like other people. It's not a big deal except when it's a big deal. The only questions worth asking have already been answered because they dont have a voice in the first place.

And yet the wheel in the sky keeps on turning, and I dont know where I'll be tommorow. But it's easy because somebody else already did it for me. In a shitty way.

I've got the world up my ass, society is burning me up. Take a bite, spit it out.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

To challenge the champions of hardcore ignorance in the battle of weakness vs weakness, the glorious heroes of enlightenment come forth and wash over themselves.

Wave upon wave of eternal wisdom crashes against the cowering populace. In the end, only the mightiest will remain. Only the most massive black holes, from which nothing can escape, and to which all is drawn.

The award ceremony begins at dawn, after the deadites have swallowed your soul.

To challenge the champions of hardcore ignorance in the battle of weakness vs weakness, the glorious heroes of enlightenment come forth and wash over themselves.

Wave upon wave of eternal wisdom crashes against the cowering populace. In the end, only the mightiest will remain. Only the most massive black holes, from which nothing can escape, and to which all is drawn.

Retreat was good. Enjoyed the talk and the zazen. Had a great time staring at a wall for two days in SoHo, leaving for lunch and at the day's end to find the streets teeming with people too hip to be alive. And I got hit on, at a sesshin! Isn't life just way too strange?

in case you are reading these, whatever happened to your & Nishijima's Nagarjuna-book? I thought it was supposed to be out by now, and I think I already saw it on sale somewhere, but now it's "Out of Stock" or "Not yet published" everywhere. What gives?

Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us.Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?Peasant 1: Burn them.Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?Peasant 1: More witches.Peasant 2: Wood.Sir Bedevere: Good. Now, why do witches burn?Peasant 3: ...because they're made of... wood?Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her.Sir Bedevere: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?Peasant 1: Oh yeah.Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?Peasant 1: No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?Peasant 1: Bread.Peasant 2: Apples.Peasant 3: Very small rocks.Peasant 1: Cider.Peasant 2: Gravy.Peasant 3: Cherries.Peasant 1: Mud.Mysterion: Jesus.Peasant 2: Lead! Lead!King Arthur: A Duck.Sir Bedevere: ...Exactly. So, logically...Peasant 1: If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.Sir Bedevere: And therefore...Peasant 2: ...A witch! Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!